The Bunnies on Your Block

Here's your nightly math! Just 5 quick minutes of number fun for kids and parents at home. Read a cool fun fact, followed by math riddles at different levels so everyone can jump in. Your kids will love you for it.

The Bunnies on Your Block

Of all the animals out there, one of the cutest is the bunny rabbit. If you live in a grassy neighborhood, you might see some bunnies hop right past your house. So our fan Anne S. asked, how many bunnies can live in a neighborhood? There’s no single answer to this, since some towns don’t have the right weather, or the right kinds of plants for the rabbits to eat. One group of wildlife scientists says there can be as many as 15 rabbits in a small park 30 feet wide, and they’ll all have enough to eat. But in other places, there might be just 1 bunny in an acre (an acre is about 5 times the size of an average backyard). Bunnies are super cute, but if you’re trying to grow carrots or tomatoes in your garden, you might want your fluffy neighbors to move somewhere else before they start snacking.

Wee ones: If you’ve counted 4 bunnies in your yard, what numbers do you say to count the next 3?

Little kids: Which has more bunnies, a group with 5 fluffy tails, or a group with 8 furry legs? Bonus: How many bunnies is that all together?

Big kids: If your street has 24 houses split evenly on both sides, but only houses on 1 side have bunnies, how many houses have them? Bonus: If instead every house has 3 bunnies of its own, are there enough for every one of 80 residents to have one as a pet?

Answers:Wee ones: 5, 6, 7.

Little kids: The group with 5 tails, since it has 5 bunnies instead of 2. Bonus: 7 bunnies.

Big kids: 12 houses. Bonus: Not quite, since there are 72 bunnies.

About the Author

Laura Bilodeau Overdeck is founder and president of Bedtime Math Foundation. Her goal is to make math as playful for kids as it was for her when she was a child. Her mom had Laura baking before she could walk, and her dad had her using power tools at a very unsafe age, measuring lengths, widths and angles in the process. Armed with this early love of numbers, Laura went on to get a BA in astrophysics from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; she continues to star-gaze today. Laura’s other interests include her three lively children, chocolate, extreme vehicles, and Lego Mindstorms.